no History of Inland Transport 



North American colonies the plantations have constantly 

 followed either the sea coast or the banks of the navigable 

 rivers, and have scarce anywhere extended themselves to any 

 considerable distance from both." 



On the Continent of Europe the location of the chief inland 

 centres of trade, commerce, and industry was no less decided 

 by the convenience of transport afforded by the great navigable 

 rivers, as shown (to give two examples only) by Augsburg on 

 the Danube and Cologne on the Rhine. 



In Britain there were found to be advantages in having a 

 port, not at the mouth of a river, but as far inland as the 

 vessels employed could go. One of these advantages lay in the 

 fact that, the further inland the river-port, the greater was the 

 protection against the Danish or Norwegian pirates who, at 

 one time, infested the seas around our shores ; but the main 

 reasons for the preference are somewhat quaintly expressed 

 by " R. S.," in a pamphlet, published in 1675, entitled 

 " Avon a ; or a Transient View of the Benefit of making Rivers 

 of this Kingdom Available. Occasioned by observing the 

 Scituation of the City of Salisbury, upon the Avon, and the 

 Consequence of opening that River to that City." The writer 

 says : 



" There is more advantage to those places, which, being 

 seated far within the Land (as this l is), do enjoy the benefit 

 of Commerce by Sea, by some Navigable River, than to those 

 Port-Towns which are seated in some Creeke or Bay only, and 

 are (as I may call it) Land-lock'd, having no passage up into 

 the Land but by Carriages, as we see in Poole and Lynn, in 

 Dorset, and in a number of other Port-Towns of like Scituation 

 in other places quite round the Island : For such places, 

 though the Sea brings in commodities to them, yet they can 

 neither without great charge convey those commodities higher 

 up into the Land, nor, without the like charge, receive the Inn- 

 land commodities to export again : Whereas, Cities seated 

 upon navigable Rivers far within the Land look like some 

 Noble Exchange of Nature's own designing ; where the Native 

 and the Forreigner may immediately meet, and put off to each 

 other the particular commodities of the growth of their own 

 Countreys ; the Native (as a Merchant) receiving the Forreign 

 Goods at first hand, and exchanging his own for them at the 

 1 Salisbury. 



